Cardinal

Max and Maggie found this sweet baby cardinal with a injured wing at a friends house across creek on Saturday. They watched for a long time to see if it's mother would appear, but she seemed to be abandoned. They brought her home and made a place her in our sunroom. The next morning when we walked to church, we left her in the garage to practice flying. Just outside of our garage happens to be another cardinals nest. We have been watching for the past three weeks as a mother and father care for their three (much smaller) babies. When we returned and opened the garage the mother and father cardinal flew in and out of the garage - a bit frantic to help our abandoned bird. We set her out in the garden and watched with binoculars for an hour as they flew back and forth between their nest and our bird - hunting and feeding all four chicks. We decided to build a nest for our little bird in the nearby tree house. All afternoon the mother and father cared for her. Around five, she gained enough strength and we watched her fly high up into the trees above our house. It was beautiful. I want to be a person that cares for others with the same intensity as our faithful cardinal neighbors.